Daily Kos: American and Korean worker groups rally against Walmart in Seoul

Workers are reaching around the world to pressure Walmart to improve its labor policies. Korean and American unions and labor groups, including Change to Win, Warehouse Workers United, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Korean Public Service and Transportation Workers Union, and International Solidarity House joined this week for a demonstration outside of Walmart's global procurement office in Seoul, calling on the corporation to adopt a Responsible Contractor Policy.

"Millions of families around the globe are suffering because of Walmart’s failure to protect the workers who help the business profit," said KPTU Vice President Jong-in Kim. "Walmart is orchestrating a race to the bottom which is driving down wages for workers across Asia and allowing human rights violations by suppliers and contractors."

Because so much of the work in Walmart's supply chain is outsourced to subcontractors, giving Walmart semi-plausible deniability for their abuses, worker groups have been working to pressure the corporation in a variety of ways, including wage theft and retaliatory firing complaints against warehouse companies serving Walmart, as well as informational events like the one that helped lead a major pension fund to blacklist Walmart this winter. Building an international coalition to create pressure in other countries where workers suffer from its abusive policies keeps Walmart under pressure and builds the case for its responsibility: Walmart is the the common connection between all of these subcontractors at which workers are underpaid and physically endangered, so Walmart ultimately bears responsibility for demanding a higher standard.

Sign Up For Updates

The great American middle class wasn’t something that just happened – it was built brick by brick. It was built by soldiers returning from war and a government that repaid them by giving them a shot at college.

What the wealthy and well-connected figured out is that they have strength in numbers: the numbers of dollars they contribute to politicians. It’s time working and middle class Americans use our strength in numbers to reclaim the American Dream. We need a counterweight to the power of big money – and that’s the power of big numbers, the power of ordinary people who work for a living demanding to have our voices heard – from the workplace to Washington.